Cabbage is a satisfying vegetable to grow in the garden like carrots and parsnips. It is relatively undemanding and available from July on in the garden. In the fall after hard frost, when you have harvested everything from the garden, it will keep in the fridge for at least a month. We consider it a staple, like carrots or onions, that we almost never have to buy.

Cabbage, by many, is considered a poor man’s vegetable and thus there are millions of recipes from around the world for wonderful cabbage soups. The following was inspired by the Frugal Gourmet Cooks with Wine, with my adaptations.

When Anjuli and I get together in a kitchen it is like the improvisation that goes on between jazz musicians. She has an idea and it sparks me, I enhance on it, back and forth we go until, from these sparks, a dish is created. It just flows from mind to mind and heart to heart with no effort and no ego. It is quite amazing to me. I used to sing in the 60s with a partner. Sometimes we would hit a perfect note together. The feeling of the perfection of the note would make the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It had a life of its own. When Anjuli and I cook together sometimes we create a dish that feels like that. We can just feel that it is right.

Buying a chicken and processing it yourself is an excellent way to save money and introduce flavor into stocks and recipes. It’s easy to boil a chicken, and once done, the meat falls right off. Of course, it was only easy after my mother came for the weekend and showed me this technique and others.

There is never, ever, a good reason to buy a conventional chicken. Buy Organic, and find the best one you can. Don’t even get me started on the industry of chickens, or I will spam you with statistics and horrifying photos. Animal rights aside, you are what you eat. Who wants to be part broken-legged fat bird stuffed with antibiotics? OK, I’ll stop. This 3 pound youngin was $14.